Seasons (There is a Time):

Sometime around third grade, I remember having a heated debut about the seasons and strongly arguing for a two-way tie between summer and winter as Mother Nature’s best offerings. At a time when my life was defined by snow days and summer camp, it’s was only natural that my favorite months were the year’s coldest and warmest, youthful extremes filled with ski trips, swimming pools, and, of course, no school.

So, perhaps then, it’s a sign that I’m getting old, or at least older, that in the past few years I’ve grown to appreciate the more mild, mundane temperatures of the fall and spring, the often overlooked calm before winter’s onslaught and summer’s metal recess. I find a great deal of beauty in not just in the cycle of seasons, but the little, annual traditions we’ve carved into them, like the initials carved into The Giving Tree---that unnamed day the night before Thanksgiving when everyone between the ages of 21 and 28 make one final pilgrimage to their old, hometown bar. In an effort gain some control over my often influx world, I’ve created my own new holidays, things to look forward to each year and keep close with my childhood friends: Fall Day (an afternoon my friend Viv and I go apple picking and to local winery), my Spaghetti marinara mixer (an excuse to eat carbs with my oldest friends), and my hung-over for the holidays extravaganza (which usually falls in January when I’m too disorganized to have my holiday party around, um, the holidays)

So, if Thanksgiving has blossomed into my New Year’s Eve, then it’s only appropriate that I once again resolve to update my blog more often. Starting this week the Greenhaus Effect should adopt a few new features, including weekly mp3s, lists, and the self-depreciative banter which has formed the bedrock of this blog since its launch last April.

I also caved and joined MySpace in an attempt to pull a George Louis Costanza and follow the opposite of each of my instincts. We’ll see how it goes

Until then….